FEEDBACK FROM:
Tamara Tutnjevic Gorman
Senior Policy Adviser Child Protection
World Vision International
Vision, goal and objectives of the global plan of action:
1. Are you in broad agreement with the vision, goals and guiding principles? Please provide
suggestions for improving them.
World Vision in principle supports the vision, goals and objectives of the Plan. However, we
believe that considerations should also be given to to crisis situations including conflict and
natural disasters, as risks and vulnerability to violence are particularly heightened during those
circumstances. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to state the goal as the following:
The goal is to strengthen the role of the health systems within a multisectoral national response
in every settings, including stable and humanitarian ones in…...(and the following
unchanged). Similar mention should be made for each of the objectives.
We also suggest to use term:”against women, girls and boys” in formulation of objectives to
promote the cohesion of the plan and response of health sector to violence against women
and children. The plan is missing this connecting point and it reads as two plans at places. It is
important to recognise that violence against girls is the critical linchpin between the two. While
girls suffer disproportionally from violence and are greatly affected by gender based violence,
they are still children and many basic principles in response of health sector for children apply
for girls and vice versa. Recognising that violence against girls is also form of violence against
children is critical for data collection and measuring progress in ending both violence against
children and women.
2. Are the proposed objectives adequate and feasible? Please provide suggestions for improving
them.
The proposed objectives are feasible.
3. It may be unrealistic to expect objectives to be achieved in a short period of time. We welcome
your feedback on the proposed time frame.
World Vision believes that given the progress achieved so far in addressing violence against
women and children through health sector and the global commitments for action expressed
in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the objectives of the Plan may be realistically
achieved in 10-15 years depending on context. We propose that the time frame should be
linked to the time-frame of SDGs – which is by 2030.
4. Please provide suggestions for improving the structure of the draft global plan of action.
Proposed actions to address different types of violence:We have proposed evidence-based
actions to address the different types of violence.
5. Are you in broad agreement with the proposed actions? Are there any revisions or additions to
these?
World Vision in the broad agreement with the actions proposed. However we have number of
proposals to strengthen the actions (listed bellow):
A. Actions across different forms of violence:
 Objective 1, point2: Please include reference to safe and violence free education in
addition to general access to primary and secondary education. The evidence from World
Vision programmes clearly points to the importance of violence free and safe
environments to ensure children and especially girls stay in schools and complete their
education.
 Objective 2, point5: Revise the action to include awareness rising on harmful
consequences of violence against women, girls and boys in addition to awareness on
available support. This is critical for prevention of violence.
 Objective 2: We suggest to add following actions:
1. Training of health staff in clinical management of rape survivors
2. Supply primary health facilities and/or emergency room with commodities and
medical supplies for the management of rape survivors
 Objective 3: We suggest adding following action: Design health facilities to enhance
physical security and access in refugee camps and for IDP.
B. Violence against Women and Girls:
 Please correct language in the box outlining actions covered by this section to consistently
include women and girls under each of proposed strategies. Please also include statement
that links the actions on violence against women with those against children (girls and boys)
considering particularly that girls may be victims of traditional practices, gender based
violence, but also child maltreatment (that includes gender based violence).
 Objective 1, point3: revise third bullet point into: ensure meaningful participation of
women and girls including those that survived violence, in the process of developing,
implementing, and monitoring policies.
 Objective 2, points 4and 5: please include wording “änd girls” in both proposed actions.
Under point 4 girls under 18 may also be married or may have intimate partners.
 Objective 4, point3: Include pre-natal sex selection among the less researched forms of
violence. Also please include research on the role of social norms in perpetrating violence
against women and girls.
C. Violence against Children (VAC)
 Objective 1, point 1: WV suggests to revise and divide this point in two for better clarity: 1.
“Integrate strategies to address VAC through health sector into existing policies and
national plans of action to prevent and address VAC.; 2. Integrate strategies to prevent and
address VAC in exiting polices and action plans on child and adolescent health, and early
childhood development “. The action point 1 will ensure that national policies and
strategies aimed at VAC are fully integrating health sector response, while action 2 will
ensure that relevant health related strategies have VAC focus.
 Objective 2 , points 1 and 2: Term peer violence is used in conjunction with term child
maltreatment. Since child maltreatment per definition includes peer violence, WV suggests
to consistently use only term child maltreatment or violence against children throughout
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document. The only exception may be when specific forms of child maltreatment or VAC
are listed.
Objective 2. point 4: please revise the language to specify collaboration with nodal
ministries responsible for child protection, as no country has specific child protection
ministry.
Objective 3. World Vision suggest focusing of objective 3 on the role of health sector and
the coordination with other partners involved in programming to prevent and respond to
VAC. Currently, while essential to end VAC some proposed actions appear to be outside
the health sector direct responsibilities. We suggest reformulating actions to ensure
engagement, coordination and partnership with other sectors and stakeholders. We also
suggest taking into account broader national efforts to strengthen child protection systems
as well as wealth of actions preformed by number of international actors including UNICEF,
UNSRSG on VAC and child focused NGOs when formulating actions. Please see suggested
revisions in the points below:
Objective 3, point 1: Suggested revision of action: “Implement, evaluate, monitor and scale
up evidence-informed interventions to: prevent child maltreatment, in particular those
programmes that can be delivered through the health sector (e.g. nurse home visiting and
parenting support programmes).
Objective 3: point 2: World Vision suggests that this point should be revised and moved
under objective. Suggested revision: “Advocate for integration of interventions to prevent
violence against children into existing early child development programmes, schools-based
life- and social-skills training and youth development programmes, and measure their
results.”
Objective 3, point 3 and point 5: World Vision suggest for these two actions to be carried
out in partnership with other organisations that are currently collecting evidence on
successful interventions to prevent and end violence against children. This includes UN
agencies and child focused organisations that are implementing interventions especially in
low and middle income countries. We propose therefore to include wording “ with
partners” into formulation of the action points.
Objective 3, point 4: World Vision suggest integrating this action into the broader national
efforts to strengthen their child protection systems and to include this specific reference in
the wording of action.
6. Which of these actions are appropriate for Member States according to you and which for
other national and international partners?
World Vision suggests separating the actions for Member States from those of international
and national partners. Such division in the structure of plan would greatly strengthen the
potential impact of plan since it would articulate clearly expectations from Members States.
The role of Member States should be focused on improving the policy and legal framework,
strengthening capacity of professionals, referral and service provision as well as data collection
and management. Ensuring adequate budgetary allocation and intersectoral coordination is
critical role of member states. Ministries of Health may play critical role in championing and
advocating for better prevention and protection of children from violence internally – within
their governments, even when they do not have specific mandate for child protection.
Member States may also play significant role in facilitation change in cultural and social norms
through awareness raising campaigns and programmes.
International partners are best positioned to advocate for policy changes and better
implementation of measures to prevent and address violence. They also play critical role in
providing technical assistance to support initiatives to prevent and violence against children,
collect and provide evidence on strategies that work, testing and developing innovative models,
and providing support for research and evaluation. Civil society in particular is well positioned
to monitor the implementation of measures and to facilitate citizens engagement through
social accountability mechanisms.
7. Which of the proposed actions would you consider to be “core” or part of a “minimum package”
to be implemented across all settings?
World Vision believes that following actions should be included in the core package:
 Develop guidelines/ protocols/ standard operating procedures in health sector to prevent
violence against women, girls and boys and to provide care, support and services to
women, girls and boys survivors.
 Establish strong coordination mechanisms particularly in relations to identification and
referral mechanisms with other sectors including social welfare services, child protection
services and education.
 Integrate efforts to prevent violence against women, girls and boys within range of health
related policies, plans and services including those focused on maternal and child health,
early childhood development, sexual and reproductive health, adolescent health and
mental health.
 Strengthen data collection and integrate it into regular population based surveys used to
collect national statistics.
 Increase budget allocations for preventing and addressing violence against women and
children.
 Increase capacity of health workers to prevent and respond to violence against women,
girls and boys in the best possible manner and without disrespect and abuse .
 Raise awareness among senior policy makers and decision makers about the health, social
and financial costs of violence against women, girls and boys and the need for it to be
prioritised in health and other sectors.
8. Which of these actions could feasibly be implemented with resources that are currently
available and which ones would require additional resources?
9. What challenges would you face in implementing the proposed actions to strengthen your
health system’s response?
Support/guidance/partnerships:
10. What type of technical support, guidance and/or evidence would you find useful from WHO in
order to implement the proposed actions?
11. What partnerships will you need to build in order to strengthen your health system’s response
in addressing violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children?
Global targets:We have proposed several global targets to monitor the implementation of the global
plan of action.
12. Do you consider these feasible? Can you suggest how to improve these targets.
It is hard to judge the feasibility of targets without clear time frame noted in targets definition.
Targets seem feasible, but World Vision believes they can be more ambitious, especially when it
comes to child protection. This is because many countries are already implementing measures to
integrate violence against children in the health system and almost all countries are working on
strengthening child protection systems that include cross-sectoral collaboration with health sector.
Targets do not take into account the level of child protection and health systems development
hence some percentages may be set too low. Many developed countries already have protocols
and guidelines for health sector response to VAC, some of which may need to be improved, but are
existing. This means that targets may be achieved without having the real change achieved in less
developed and fragile contexts. We would suggest collecting a baseline on the proposed targets
before deciding on percentages.
Targets should be able to capture real change in the way in which health sector contributes to
ending violence. However, some of the targets are not meeting this criterion.
Below is our suggestion on how to improve them.
Actions across different forms of violence:
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Objective 1: Global targets. The first target is not really clear in terms what is expected of
governments. WV suggests revising the target in the following way: By XX, XX of countries will
integrate violence against women, girls and boys into existing national health policies and
plans in alignment with national action plan and strategies to end violence against women,
girls and children. This formulation will recognise the existing efforts on addressing violence
and will place responsibility on health sector for ensuring that health aspects are included.
Secondly, we support the position that all governments need to act on all forms of violence
simultaneously rather than to chose one form to focus on as proposed in original target. This is
due to the interconnectedness between the causes, manifestations and solutions to different
forms of violence,
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Global target 2. As noted above we recommend that target focuses on establishing of focal
point on both violence against women and girls and on violence against children.
Violence against children:
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Objective 2. Global Target: World Vision suggests focusing global target on change in a way
that health system addresses violence instead on standardisation of training for health workers.
The new focus would assume existence of professional capacity, while capturing real change in
response to the problem. Possible target may be; by 2015, 70% of countries have integrated
and case management procedures into health sector.
Objective 3, Global Target: Suggest rewording the target: By 2020, the number of countries
that report implementing evidence based programmes to prevent violence against children
through health sector will have increased for 10%.
Objective 4: Global target. World Vision suggests focusing target on integration of data
collection on VAC into national statistics that are collected on a regular basis by the national
statistical offices. This will be in alignment with requirement for government to measure
progress against the SDG targets – especially target 16.2 on ending violence against children.
13. Are there any others you would propose?
World Vision would like to propose to include two additional targets on violence against children
that is in alignment with the SDGs:
By XXXX, XX of countries will be able to provide data on physical and sexual violence against
children segregated by age.
By XXX, XX o countries have health budgets with one or more dedicated line items addressing
violence against children.
14. Which of the targets would you prioritize?
Please see above discussion on targets in general. WV would prioritise targets that show the
tangible results in the way how health system is functioning to address violence. These include
those focused on service provision, referral and case management, budget allocation and data
collection.
Accountability:
15. What should be included in the accountability framework for this global plan of action?
16. Who should be responsible for reporting on progress made?
17. How frequently should progress in implementation be monitored?
18. What should the role of the WHO Secretariat be?
Adaptation and implementation:
19. Is it feasible to define options for adaptation and implementation of the plan at the global level?
20. What additional information could be provided to countries in order to guide them in adapting
and implementing the plan?
21. What information might be useful for adapting the plan for fragile contexts (e.g. humanitarian
crises, post-conflict settings)?
Any other comments:
Your affiliation:
World Vision International
Thank You!